Global warming ...

[NeilBlanchard]

Here is a series of videos by a science reporter, that takes on myths about climate change and debunks them:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52KLGqDSAjo&list=PL82yk73N8eoX-Xobr_TfHsWPfAIyI7VAP&index=1

 

[SeanNelson]

Yeah, global warming. The most freezing summer I remember.

You realize that comments like this betray a real lack of understanding about how climate works, right?

 

[SparkE]

Yeah, global warming. The most freezing summer I remember.

You realize that comments like this betray a real lack of understanding about how climate works, right?

Actually, it doesn't. "Global warming" is about climate change. The effects of climate change are more than just warming. It includes changes in the jet stream, changes in ocean temps and currents, more rainfall (such as the spate of 30-days-of-rain-in-one-20-hour-storm-induced floods in France, the U.K. and the U.S. (among other countries) over the past 5-6 years). It also includes colder than normal winters (in some locations) and both wetter and drier seasons (floods and droughts). 'Global warming' is a misnomer - it's all about climate change.

And besides, it was a joke - lighten up.

 

[SparkEVPilot]

Here is a series of videos by a science reporter, that takes on myths about climate change and debunks them:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52KLGqDSAjo&list=PL82yk73N8eoX-Xobr_TfHsWPfAIyI7VAP&index=1

An informative series of short videos - thanks for posting the link.

Let the scientists work together to figure out the details of climate change - keep the politicians out of the discussion. In the end, we each need to determine what contribution we are willing and can make to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide and air pollutants we cause to enter the atmosphere. For the year 2016, I estimated the amount of carbon dioxide operating my home and vehicles (2002 Honda Accord, 1999 Chevy Silverado PU Truck) would have introduced into the atmosphere. It amounted to 23,516 pounds of carbon dioxide. Then I factored in the impact of changes I made to reduce my carbon dioxide contribution. Change 1: I replaced the gasoline powered Honda and Truck with 2 electric Spark EVs . This reduced my carbon dioxide contribution by 11,581 pounds per year by eliminating gasoline. Change 2: I installed PV solar on my home to provide power for charging the EVs as well as my home. This reduced my carbon dioxide contribution by an additional 2978 pounds. Change 3: no change - I continue to use the same amount of natural gas which contributes 5862 pounds of carbon dioxide per year. The changes I did make reduced my carbon dioxide contribution by 62%!

Pulling the two gasoline powered vehicles off of the road also helped reduce air pollution but, probably very little since both vehicles had excellent smog test reports. But, every little bit helps!

 

[SeanNelson]

Yeah, global warming. The most freezing summer I remember.

You realize that comments like this betray a real lack of understanding about how climate works, right?

...it was a joke - lighten up.

Sorry. But I've heard so many people use isolated local weather events to try to refute climate change that it's become something of a trigger for me.

 

[oilerlord]

The changes I did make reduced my carbon dioxide contribution by 62%!

Pulling the two gasoline powered vehicles off of the road also helped reduce air pollution but, probably very little since both vehicles had excellent smog test reports. But, every little bit helps!

So, in "pulling the vehicles off the road" - does that assume you had them crushed? If you merely sold them to someone else, rest assured; they are still on the road spewing CO2.

 

[oilerlord]

"Global warming" is about climate change. The effects of climate change are more than just warming. It includes changes in the jet stream, changes in ocean temps and currents, more rainfall (such as the spate of 30-days-of-rain-in-one-20-hour-storm-induced floods in France, the U.K. and the U.S. (among other countries) over the past 5-6 years).

By definition, climate is described as "The weather conditions prevailing in an area in general or over a long period." At what point did the differences in a microscopic sample of 5-6 years of weather patterns become referred to as "climate change"?

 

[SparkEVPilot]

The changes I did make reduced my carbon dioxide contribution by 62%!

Pulling the two gasoline powered vehicles off of the road also helped reduce air pollution but, probably very little since both vehicles had excellent smog test reports. But, every little bit helps!

So, in "pulling the vehicles off the road" - does that assume you had them crushed? If you merely sold them to someone else, rest assured; they are still on the road spewing CO2.

The truck sits in my driveway and is used very little - like occasional dump runs. My daughter, who lost her car, uses the Honda to go to work. I do what I can to reduce my gasoline carbon dioxide contribution. Others - like my daughter - are responsible for their own.

I do not disagree with your statement. Gasoline's carbon dioxide contribution will continue to increase unless, every time a person takes delivery of a new vehicle, he / she has their current vehicle removed from the road and crushed. Even purchasing an EV would require the same crushing requirement to have a net decrease in gasoline carbon dioxide contribution. It ain't gonna happen! What I do expect we will see is older worn out vehicles, that are replaced with a new or newer used vehicle, being pulled off of the road and crushed. The assumption is the gasoline carbon dioxide contribution for the new / used vehicle would be lower due to the vehicle having better mpg that the vehicle being crushed.

 

[oilerlord]

Fair enough, we do what we can.

 

[SparkE]

"Global warming" is about climate change. The effects of climate change are more than just warming. It includes changes in the jet stream, changes in ocean temps and currents, more rainfall (such as the spate of 30-days-of-rain-in-one-20-hour-storm-induced floods in France, the U.K. and the U.S. (among other countries) over the past 5-6 years).

By definition, climate is described as "The weather conditions prevailing in an area in general or over a long period." At what point did the differences in a microscopic sample of 5-6 years of weather patterns become referred to as "climate change"?

Wel, I choose a different emphasis of the same definition :

By definition, climate is described as "The weather conditions prevailing in an area in general or over a long period."

In general, it has been hotter and drier where I live over the past 5-6 years (California, much hotter and a drought) compared to historical norms (over my lifetime here). So, the climate has changed. It may not be permanent, but it has changed.

 

[oilerlord]

You're picking nits.

In terms of weather, anything can happen. Sometimes it rains more, sometimes it hardly rains at all, sometimes we get a "normal" amount Climate is based on long term, historical averages; not a few years of weather data. 2016 for example was the wettest year in California in 122 years of weather data. A few years before that, dry conditions prevailed. Those are changes in weather, not climate.

I'm not debating climate change, only saying that changes in weather patterns over 5-6 years is too small of a sample to determine an area's climate, or if it really is changing.

 

[WetEV]

You're picking nits.

In terms of weather, anything can happen. Sometimes it rains more, sometimes it hardly rains at all, sometimes we get a "normal" amount Climate is based on long term, historical averages; not a few years of weather data. 2016 for example was the wettest year in California in 122 years of weather data. A few years before that, dry conditions prevailed. Those are changes in weather, not climate.

I'm not debating climate change, only saying that changes in weather patterns over 5-6 years is too small of a sample to determine an area's climate, or if it really is changing.

You do have a point that 5-6 years is too short to determine if climate is really changing, even on a global basis.

Both rainfall and drought should increase as the climate warms.

Rainfall increases because evaporation increases at higher temperatures, and what goes up will come down. Drought should increase for several reasons: rainfall will move, generally away from mid-latitudes but in a complex pattern, rainfall will come more in less common but larger storms, and evaporation increases.

What the graph shows is that the wet years in California are getting wetter. That is not a counter example to human caused climate change. That is what has been predicted.

 

[DucRider]

Some long term looks:

Atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration and mean global temperature during the past 1000 years

instrumental record of global average temperatures

change in annually averaged sea level at 23 geologically stable tide gauge sites

This longer term view shows that global temperatures are rising, carbon dioxide levels are raising in step with temps, and ice is melting raising sea levels.

While this does not differentiate the amount of CO2 as either a cause, byproduct, or unrelated completely to the raising temps, there is little doubt the earth is warming.

 

[oilerlord]

What the graph shows is that the wet years in California are getting wetter. That is not a counter example to human caused climate change. That is what has been predicted.

What the graph shows, in no chronological order, are the top 10 wettest California seasons in 122 years. It also indicates that 1968 had about an inch more rain than in 1997. The graph lists precipitation records, not necessarily a trend.

 

[redpoint5]

I know it got OT, but I was clear in writing "environmental impact" in my original statement. If we focus purely on carbon emissions, we ignore things like nuclear waste and accidental or intentional releases of radioactive materials, destruction of ecosystems to make way for "cleaner" power, etc. The environment isn't just warming - it's degrading generally.

That just isn't true, and it depends on what you mean by environment.

I can tell you the environment of LA has improved since the 80s. That place was smog city despite having a fraction of the people living there today.

There are orders of magnitude more trees in forests in the USA than a hundred years ago.

Nuclear war is a legitimate fear. Nuclear power is a legitimate way to generate energy, and probably makes the most sense both economically and environmentally.

 

[SeanNelson]

I can tell you the environment of LA has improved since the 80s. That place was smog city despite having a fraction of the people living there today.

Cherry picking one local example is meaningless, no better than people denying the reality of climate change because they happened to have a cold winter. Widespread deforestation, horrendous air pollution in Asia, depletion of fish stocks, and countless other examples suggest that the global quality of the environment is indeed degrading in many ways other than just climate change.

There are orders of magnitude more trees in forests in the USA than a hundred years ago.

Really? An "order of magnitude" is a factor of 10, so "orders of magnitude", which implies at least two, would mean a factor of 100 or more. Are there really 100 times more trees in forests over the past 100 years? Can you point to anything to substantiate that?

 

[oilerlord]

Cherry picking one local example is meaningless, no better than people denying the reality of climate change because they happened to have a cold winter. Widespread deforestation, horrendous air pollution in Asia, depletion of fish stocks, and countless other examples suggest that the global quality of the environment is indeed degrading in many ways other than just climate change.

Not meaningless, Sean. It's still a win...an example of what is possible. LA is a huge city, and it's air is cleaner than it was back in the 80's. Positive change like that could also happen in other large cities like Delhi and Beijing.

Global warming gets all the press, but I think I think recognizing and taking steps against pollution is important too.

 

[SeanNelson]

Cherry picking one local example is meaningless, no better than people denying the reality of climate change because they happened to have a cold winter. Widespread deforestation, horrendous air pollution in Asia, depletion of fish stocks, and countless other examples suggest that the global quality of the environment is indeed degrading in many ways other than just climate change.

Not meaningless, Sean. It's still a win...an example of what is possible. LA is a huge city, and it's air is cleaner than it was back in the 80's. Positive change like that could also happen in other large cities like Delhi and Beijing.

Meaningless in the sense of LA's improvement being indicative of the health of the global environment.

But yes, an excellent example of how actively combating a problem can reverse the damage. We need more visible wins like this to galvanize action. Unfortunately, that's difficult to do with climate change because it's such a pervasive, fluctuating and slow moving (in terms of human attention span) phenomenon.

Global warming gets all the press, but I think I think recognizing and taking steps against pollution is important too.

I've always said that whether you believe in climate change or not there are plenty of other great reasons for us to wean ourselves off fossil fuels, and pollution is one of the greatest of those reasons.

 

[SparkEVPilot]

Cherry picking one local example is meaningless, no better than people denying the reality of climate change because they happened to have a cold winter. Widespread deforestation, horrendous air pollution in Asia, depletion of fish stocks, and countless other examples suggest that the global quality of the environment is indeed degrading in many ways other than just climate change.

Not meaningless, Sean. It's still a win...an example of what is possible. LA is a huge city, and it's air is cleaner than it was back in the 80's. Positive change like that could also happen in other large cities like Delhi and Beijing.

Global warming gets all the press, but I think I think recognizing and taking steps against pollution is important too.

I was born in Los Angeles in 1945 and lived in the LA basin until 1974. I know how bad the SMOG was at that time. I even remember driving to Ontario to looks at some new homes. I knew I was only a couple of miles from the mountains but, because of the smog, I could not see them. Today, the air quality in the LA basin is much, much better but there is still more to be done. The same can be said for the Central Valley of California where I currently live. Converting the vehicle fleet to EVs will be of great help. Just watch what happens in China.

 

[IMAdolt]

It's always more beneficial to re-use rather than replace.

However people like shiny new things and they're going to keep getting them, the carbon defect of a new EV is made up for pretty quickly, typically within a 3 year lease. EVERYTHING after that is beneficial over and ICE, an ICE gets less efficient and more polluting over time a BEV doesn't, in fact grid improvement instantly improve the auto environmental impact. It is in no way silly to believe you're doing some good by buying a new EV.

I don't believe anyone can rationally say a new car is better then a used one carbon impact wise but fleet and market share increase for the BEV is what's required and that means buying new and used EV's.

I must confess I read a lot of this thread and didn't read all the links provided, do the carbon footprint assessments of BEV's vs ICE's take into account recyclability of components? Hopefully this surplus in used car inventory happens to mean more ICE's being scrapped over time and a larger and larger share of the fleet for BEV's, that's what it all boils down to. You can't do much to improve the efficiency of an ICE fleet but a 1% power grid efficiency improvement has a massive impact on a BEV fleet, if that means buying new BEV's and incentivising the sales then so be it.

Here in BC there's a scrap incentive, $6000 toward a new BEV/plug in hybrid/FCV or $3000 toward a used one. that dictates a direct EV over ICE vehicle "replacement" no resale, scrap only. It seems like an effective way to replace a fleet and not just increase it.